It’s the season for game console news, with both Sony and Microsoft recently unveiling their new game consoles, and Nintendo having beaten them to the punch by releasing the Wii U last winter. That’s, of course, at the same time that mobile devices and Macs are becoming more popular for gaming, and with AirPlay through an Apple TV, your iPad or Mac can power some serious widescreen gaming.

That doesn’t make consoles obsolete, of course. iOS devices have great touch and motion capacities, but the Xbox’ Kinetic gesture controls and the Wii’s motion controller — not to mention the gamepads used in all consoles — give console gaming a serious leg-up. Then, there’s the exclusive titles — from Mario to Halo — that are only on consoles.

That’s why we’re wondering if you have a game console, or if the announcements of new consoles have you thinking about buying one. We’d love to hear your thoughts on console versus Mac/iOS gaming in the comments below!

Typographic artwork is very popular at the moment with all sorts images being created, from maps to movie posters. They look really cool but don’t you just wish that you could do it yourself using any picture you want?

Wordify brings creating these types of graphics to your Mac in a very simple to use app that will convert any image you want into a typographic piece of art. It gives you beautiful results, and actually looks great doing so.

The animated GIF has never been so prevalent. What was once a way to bring some motion to a very static internet has now become a hugely popular way to share short animated clips without the need for YouTube or other Flash-based video. Unlike internet video, animated GIFs work in most browsers, requires no plug-ins, and even instant messaging services such as iMessage support them.

Until recently, creating animated GIFs was a painstaking process, either using apps such as Photoshop to build them frame-by-frame or relying upon web services to convert videos with little control. Now there’s an app for Mac OS X called GIF Brewery which aims to make generating animated GIFs from video clips as easy as possible.

GIF Brewery works by converting video clips (such as MPEG–4) but providing you with controls over the finished GIF with options for as resolution, frame rate and even special effects. All of this lets you create truly customised animated GIFs that you have complete control over. (more…)

It shouldn’t be so difficult to find that one document you need, but it often is. You’re stuck searching between different storage services and apps, and it’s still tough to find what you need. doo, our sponsor this week, is the app that just might change that.

doo is the one app for your documents. It brings together all your documents, wherever you keep them: in folders on your Mac, or in Dropbox, Google Drive, Skydrive, email accounts, and more. It then automatically generates intelligent tags for individual categories such as Companies, Document Types, Filetypes, People, Places and more, to help you quickly sort through your documents. It also seamlessly integrates with scanners and your smartphone’s camera, and uses OCR to let you search for text even if it’s in an image or scan.

doo lets you find your documents wherever you work, with native apps for your Mac, iPhone, and iPad, as well as for Android and Windows 8 devices. It’ll also help you make sure you never lose documents again with its built in backup that’ll let you keep everything organized in the doo cloud with EU-standard security.

doo organizes every document in your personal and business live, giving you a quick and effective start into a paperless life.

Go Get it!

Sound like what you’ve been waiting for? Then why wait any longer? You can download doo for free from the App Store for your Mac and start finding documents quicker then ever. You can get 1Gb of doo cloud backup space for free, then upgrade to doo Premium starting at $4.99/month for 10Gb of storage and more premium features coming soon.

You’re the oddball. There’s that one built-in Mac app that everyone else replaces, and yet, you love it. It’s built-in, works great, and you can’t figure out why everyone else doesn’t love it. But they don’t. They rave about the alternate apps, and act like Apple didn’t even include any app that could possibly do that thing.

All the while, you’re being productive each day with the built-in app you got for free, and you’re wondering why everyone else is wasting their time and money on alternates.

For me, the built-in amazing app is Preview. Everyone’s always looking for a great PDF app, or simple image editor, or annotation app … and here’s one of the best, built-into OS X for free. For our writer Pierre Wizla, it’s Mail.app, and he’s showed us how to turn it into the best email app.

So what’s your favorite built-in app in OS X, one you love more than alternates and think is a hidden gem in OS X? Looking forward to the discussion below!

There have been good things happening in the world of screen capture apps, with new apps becoming available for Mac and old favorites updating with new features. In the giant sea of screen capture apps, though, it can be hard to find just the right one for you, the one that has all the features you need and not too much of the stuff you don’t.

We’re going to amble through seven great apps for creating and annotating screenshots. They run the gamut of price and features, and hopefully at the end of it all, you’ll have a better handle on what’s out there and what’ll work for you. (more…)

Comments Off on The Next Big Platformer: Runner 2 Future Legend of Rhythm Alien

A few years ago we got the opportunity to review an awesome platforming-rhythm game called Bit.Trip Runner. We found it pretty amusing and gave it an almost perfect score: it’s a type of game we’re all familiar with, but it’s done in such a way that it feels very fresh and fun.

Now, from the creators of Bit.Trip Runner comes its successor: Runner 2. It has everything that we loved about the first game, but it builds on it and improves pretty much every aspect of it, graphics, mechanic, story, and much more.(more…)

It’s old news now that Google Reader is being shut down on July 1st. It’s also old news that finding the perfect news reading apps for your Mac and iPhone is a bit harder than you’d think at first. There’s a ton of options, but if you just want an easy way to get your news fix and keep your read status and subscriptions synced between your devices, it’s not so simple.

Most of the best options today are new web apps, some of which sync with native iOS apps but few of which have native Mac apps. Stalwart Mac RSS apps like NetNewsWire and Reeder are working on their own syncing solutions which will hopefully come before the July 1st deadline.

But NewsBar, a simple Mac and iOS RSS reader, has its own native RSS engine and can keep your subscriptions, read state, and favorited articles synced between your Macs and iOS devices via iCloud. Today. We’ve looked at NewsBar before, but let’s take another look and see what a year — and iCloud sync — has brought to the equation.(more…)

Ever wanted a great way to keep track of your family’s heritage, with all the info, pictures, locations, and more that touched your relatives? How about all of that in a beautiful interface you’ll want to show off to your family and more? Family Tree, our sponsor this week, is exactly what you’re looking for.

The Family Tree app has everything you need to keep track of everything you know about your family, and more. You can include personal info about everyone in your family, complete with photos, documents about them, and more in an intuitive interface. You can track where everyone lived on a map, connect everyone’s relationship in a beautiful tree view, or switch over to the chart view to see your family info in a circle graph.

Best of all, the Family Tree app is designed for Retina Displays, so everything will look great no matter what Mac you’re using. It also includes iCloud support, so you can sync your family data between all of your Macs and perhaps work together with your family on collecting data. Then, starting with the next version, it’ll support GEDCOM import and export, so you can import data from other family tree apps or share data from your family tree with others using different apps.

Go Get It!

Ready to get started plotting your own family tree? Then head over to the App Store and get your own copy of the Family Tree app for just $11.99, and enjoy discovering more about your family and keeping track of everything you find!

We’ve all been there: you copy a link or an image that you wanted to share with someone, but then you forget about it and accidentally copy something else over it. Sounds familiar? Yeah, that’s why you need an app to remember what has been in your clipboard.

There are plenty of apps that do just that: keep a history of the contents of your clipboard. Seriously, just search the App Store for “Clipboard” and see for yourself. That’s why today we decided to bring you an update to our previous clipboard roundup, with some of our newer favorite options for improving your clipboard. Want to check them out?(more…)